Tuesday, April 20, 2004

On Saturday some friends and I decided to partake in a rather ambitious chain of activities. The goal was to go on two Milwaukee brewery tours and then play 9 holes of twilight golf. To some this seems pretty idiotic, and while I am not in a position to confirm or deny the accuracy of that statement, I feel confident that a good time was had by all.

The Brewery ToursWhen most normal people go on brewery tour they go to drink beer and get a guided tour of whatever beer producing facility you happen to be at, at the time. Not my friends. One of my buddies has found that it is more interesting getting "left behind" by the group and then sneaking into ridiculous places. I'd be listening to our guide talking about the microbrew process and my buddy would run up to me and whisper, "dude I just snuck into the employee lunch room, it was awesome. There was a half eaten sandwich and an uneaten box of chinese take out food in the refrigerator. You gotta check this out."

If you've ever been to the Miller Brewing Company, then you've probably seen the movie at the beginning of the tour. It's a mildly enjoyable video, until they get to the part about their introduction of plastic beer bottles. The movie describes how Miller decided to introduce plastic beers bottles to help save the environment and to cut down on glass related injuries. I started booing loudly, because I am against anything that is good for the environment. I also like having the option of hitting the idiot next to me in the bar over the head with a bottle if the urge ever arises. I am also comforted by the fact that if I wanted to I could break off the bottom of my beer bottle and stab someone with if I felt so inclined.

We didn't stay on the Miller tour very long, because halfway through the tour they have you walk up 300 steps to the top of some metal brew kettle thing. As that seemed like it might be exercise, we opted to leave the tour and go straight to the bar for the free beer. The second we walked in the door, the people working in the bar wanted to know why we left the tour 20 minutes early. Instead of telling them that we just wanted free beer and didn't want to have to exercise for it, we had our buddy who was wearing a knee brace limp in and pretend to be injured. After seeing this poor bastard limping around one of the bartenders said, "This guy is wounded, get these guys some beers stat." Clearly a great man.